


and still on gold here let them lie

by TheLionInMyBed



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Body Horror, F/M, Ghost Sex, Ghosts, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Necrophilia, Racism, Self-Harm, both sexy and not, but mostly kept to implications, some nasty stuff here guys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-01
Updated: 2016-11-01
Packaged: 2018-08-28 10:45:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 4,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8442859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLionInMyBed/pseuds/TheLionInMyBed
Summary: My entries for Terrifying Tolkien week; Andreth and Aegnor find reconciliation, the host of Doriath rides out upon a merry chase, Elwing spreads her wings, Maeglin seeks a confidant, Melkor welcomes his lieutenant, Amlach makes a new friend, and Belladonna Took discovers a novel use for turnips.





	1. Death and the Maiden

He came to her most nights, as he had never come to her when he was living.When all was dark and the household long abed, she would sit up with one candle lit and her papers spread before her. She told herself at first that she was writing her memoirs, for hers had been a long life and an eventful one.

When all was dark and the household long abed, she would sit up with one candle lit and her papers spread before her. She told herself at first that she was writing her memoirs, for hers had been a long life and an eventful one.

She was not much good at lying though, especially to herself.

She never saw him arrive. Only the flicker of the light and then the sudden certainty of his presence, filling the room. He always had taken up too much space. That was one of the things she had loved about him.

Every night she would turn, and he would be there, tall and bright as life, though now his flame burnt cold. That bothered her not at all; she was an old woman now, the cold long settled in her bones, and she did not hesitate to go to him.

His golden hair was clotted stiff with blood and the vulnerable pallor of bone showed through his broken skin. She had always been the fragile one before and she found she did not mind it to see him so - it was almost funny.

He did not speak to her - she had given up trying to make him many nights past - but he came easily into her arms every time, slack limbed with want or with torn sinews.

She was an old woman. She would be dead soon, gone beyond the reaches of the world he was too bound to, and then none of this would matter.

Andreth turned and blew out the candle.


	2. there was a strangeness in the horn / a wildness in the cry / the power of devilry forlorn / exulting bloodily

It was a merry company that rode from Menegroth’s glittering halls and out upon the hunt. 

At their head was Elu Thingol, garbed by Melian’s subtle arts in silver grey with hawthorn as his crown. With him came Lúthien, his daughter, fairest of all Children, slender limbs veiled in blue and gold and the twilight shadow of her hair. 

All the host raised their voices in gay song, and the bells upon their bridles chimed brightly in accompaniment. 

All save one. 

“O Mablung, why so glum?” cried Beleg.

“I would that we sought nobler prey,” said Mablung. “A proud stag, a fierce boar - what honour is there in hunting these stunted beasts?”

“It is true,” said Daeron sadly. “What animal would not gladly die that their pelt might clothe fair Lúthien? And yet these creatures have no fur worth having, no meat to feed her, and no spreading antlers to adorn her chambers.”

Wise Beleg shook his head. “The folk of our realm are much troubled by these vermin and there is always honour in putting their fears to rest.”

At that Mablung was satisfied for he was valiant and cared as much for his people as his glory. 

It was well that he was, for at that moment the dogs picked up the trail and a glad cry went up. Great horns were sounded and the hounds bayed and sprang away into the brush. 

Behind them came their masters, laughing and hallooing, starlight glimmering in their hair and upon their spears. 

Before them, their quarry froze in silent terror and then started away into the brush. It was cunning in woodcraft but the keen eyes of the Eldar saw every broken branch and snagged lock of hair. 

It was only a matter of time. 

The host of Doriath rode at breakneck speed, rushing through the undergrowth like wind, like fire, like the surge of cleansing water, sweeping the forest clean. Lúthien laughed gaily, too breathless to raise her voice in song, and the birds in the bushes took flight and fluttered about her horse.

Fierce and valiant they were, but the hunt was not without its risks; a horse fell screaming, a crude yet cunning trap of twisted steel closed about its leg. Its rider leapt from the saddle, cursing, and brought an end to its pain. The rest of the hunt rode around him, the rush of a river parting around a stone. 

It was then that they caught sight of their quarry, filthy and stunted, ploughing through the trees ahead, stamping tender shoots beneath its crude boots. 

Proud King Thingol raised his silver lance and his was the first throw. The spear flew true, slicing deep into the beast’s leg, drawing a cry of pain that raised an answering cheer from his host.

Their prey was an obdurate beast though, and did not slow, ploughing on into the undergrowth. 

“Where does it flee to? Is it too cowardly to stand at bay?” cried Lúthien, in a voice like bells and birdsong.

“There!” cried farsighted Beleg. “It crawls into yonder burrow!”

“Filthy creatures,” said learned Daeron. “They do seem to love the dark.”

“The hounds will have it out soon enough,” said Mablung, his spear clutched in eager hands, all his disdain forgotten in the thrill of the chase. 

Huddled in its hole, listening to the scrape of digging paws, the Petty-Dwarf clutched its knife to its chest and bared its teeth. 


	3. Fight or Flight

There is a white tower in Valinor, beside the Sundering Sea. It was built for Elwing Dioriel, the Mariner’s brave wife. 

It is filled, always, with the chatter of seabirds, great and small. They make their nests from the silk and satin dresses in mahogany chests of drawers, and the marble floors are stained with their leavings. 

***

It grows easier every time. 

The first change had been agony near unendurable; her bones shattered, twisted, remade themselves within her with half the marrow eaten out. Her skin rippled, melted, ran like wax as vicious barbs forced their way through. 

She had screamed and her scream had not been a woman’s but the harsh shriek of a gull. 

The pain had swallowed up her fear and loss, and then there had been no pain at all, only the beat of her wings, slicing the air and the cold spray of the waves beneath her. 

Birds do not feel guilt or grief. They feel the subtle shifts in air currents, the ache of muscles from a long flight, and simple hungers, easily sated.

Birds do not have people to rule or to fail. Birds do mourn for children snatched by monsters. They do not have husbands whose eyes they cannot meet.

***

There is a white tower in Valinor, beside the Sundering Sea. It was built for Elwing Dioriel but you will not see her there or, if you do, you will not know her. 

Certainly she will not know you. 

Birds do not have regrets. 


	4. Look to your kingdoms

Another council meeting spent with gritted teeth and his nails biting into the palms of his hands.

Idril held forth on matters of defence in a voice like silk and silver, holding the gaze of every councillor but he.

_Speak._

Citizens were letting their livestock drink from the same cisterns from which others drew their drinking water and Ecthelion requested that the king issue an edict against it.

_Speak._

Salagant twittered about preparations for the Gates of Summer.

_Speak!_

“Nephew?” said Turgon, leaning forwards in his high seat. “Did you wish to report upon your survey of the northern hills?”

Maeglin bit the inside of his cheek and tasted metal. “It was uneventful. I found some small deposits of hematite and cinnabar but nothing of great interest. I have ore samples if anyone wishes to examine them.” He reached under the table as thought to bring them out but, as he had predicted, no one did and the meeting was swiftly adjourned.

The king pulled him aside afterwards. “Are you well? You are not usually so quiet.”

_No. Not well. I will never be well again._

“Never better,” Maeglin said with a bright smile and surely his uncle would know from that? He had never smiled like that before They- Before.

But the king only beamed back at him, the lines of care upon his face easing a little.

***

Maeglin was meticulous. He always had been. He could not make himself say it but there were other ways. He tried writing first, Cirth and Tengwar, and watched as his own hand scribbled back over the runes, obscuring all meaning.

Pictograms? Drawings? He had coloured nine sheets of parchment black from side to side before he gave it up as a waste of ink. He painted the walls of his own chambers with a scrawling, swirling mosaic of letters, not a one of which meant a thing. He would have daubed warnings upon the pale stone of the city’s streets but when he took up the paint his hands shook and spasmed so badly the pots fell from his hands to splatter his floors and boots with black.

Evidently They were meticulous too.

***

He went to the library and, quite visibly, took all they had on the Darkness in the North, on thralls and torture and spycraft, on Ósanwe, the making of orcs and the breaking of minds.

No one challenged him.

His eyes shied from the words and fear-sweat turned the leather covers slimy-slick beneath his fingers. He read them anyway, knowing that with the turn of every page his time ran down, but he found nothing that would help him.

***

He woke up screaming in the night but no one came.  

In prior years he had disdained the fatuous company of courtiers and the insufficient intellects of his fellow artisans. He had become isolated and thought himself well rid of them. He wished now, desperately, that he had thought to cultivate a friend. Someone close enough to see that something was _wrong_.

But he had driven them away and those few that remained seemed to like him better half a puppet.

Sleep was inefficient anyway.

***

Rog had escaped them too - not ‘ _too_ ’ Maeglin reminded himself - and if anyone could see the wounds that They had left, it would be him.

“I need your help,” he said, voice raised over the ring of the hammers against anvils.

Rog, scarred and limned in nightmare shadows by the forgelight, said nothing.

“We must increase weapon production. Ten fold. We. There’s not enough. We need. To be prepared.”

“For what?”

Maeglin coughed and said, in perfect imitation of himself, “I am the king’s nephew and I do not justify myself to thralls.”

The worst part was that not a second of surprise showed upon the smith’s grim face. Maeglin tried to call after him as he walked away, and managed only a choked off noise that was swallowed by the din.

Somewhere, far to the north, They were surely laughing.

***

They had taken his scars before They sent him back. He made new ones and then wore long sleeved, high collared robes to hide them.

“An accident in the forge,” he found himself saying when Salagant called upon him unexpectedly and caught a glimpse of the angry red marks about his wrists.

“You should get more sleep,” said Salagant, busying himself with ointments and bandages. “The haunted, artistic look flatters you to be sure but Gondolin’s fair maidens won’t have much use for a man missing half his fingers.”

“I don’t see how a closer friendship with them will help me get more sleep,” joked a voice that sounded just like his, startling Salagant into laughter. In truth the maidens had no use for him, fingers or no, and he had no use for any but one.

 _Idril_. Who was as wise as she was fair, surely she would know, she would see what no one else had.

Salagant was startled a second time when Maeglin staggered to his feet, knocking a bottle to the floor, and lit out of the room at a stumbling run.

He scratched at the door to the Princess’s suite, shouldered aside the servant that answered it and ran straight into her husband.

“I need to see the lady of the house,” he said, struggling free of the Man’s steadying hands, feeling a fresh surge of pain as the cuts upon his wrists reopened.

“Well met, kinsman,” the Man lied. “You’re very pale.”

“My father’s blood. I need to see my cousin.”

“So you said. She is in council with the king - should you not be in attendance too?” Maeglin blinked in confusion - was that Edain lies, more sorcery, or his own exhaustion that had caused him to forget?

Tuor saw he would not answer and went on; “You may wait if you wish it. Come sit down and I’ll send for tea. Is there aught else that you need? You really don’t look well.”

“Peace from the ignorant chattering of the Secondborn would be most welcome.”

“As you wish,” said Tuor, his face closing up.

Maeglin did not bother trying to call him back. He sank into a chair - over padded, over ornate, and surely not Idril’s taste - and sank, unmeaning, into a restless sleep.

The fire and blades, the bright, remorseless gaze of the Lord of Arda should have become routine by now. They hadn’t. Morgoth handed down judgement with his uncle’s merciless voice, watched him with his father’s dark eyes. The maia beside His throne had his mother’s vicious smile and Idril’s golden hair, and in his hands a black sword, the king’s staff of doom, a javelin.

He woke to an aching head, tea long cold upon the table and Idril standing before him in full court dress, her perfect brows drawn together, plush mouth set in a moue of distaste. “Cousin.”

“Lady.”

“Speak.”

_He knows, They are coming, get out help me I’m sorry please He is coming Theyarecoming-_

“You look lovely this evening,” Maeglin said.

“Thank you,” she said, courtly and proper and very cold. “But my husband-” she stressed ‘husband’ very carefully “-said the matter sounded more urgent than a compliment.”

“Everything is urgent to a Man. They live such short lives that everything must be rushed into; battles and alliances, children and marri-”

“You’ve grown overbold of late, cousin, and I do not appreciate your tone. If that was all you came for-”

“I came for more than words,” said something, rising and stepping close in one swift movement. Suddenly her hand was in his, fine-boned and ink splotched, and he’d wanted her but never wanted _this_.

“Unhand me,” she said, unflinching despite the bruises he was pressing into the soft skin of her wrist.

“I can’t, you were promised to- I was in the hills and I made a mistake but I can protect you from- I _can_ , but you need to _listen_ -”

“I do not think I do. Tuor,” she said, raising her voice. “Darling. Please see my cousin out.”

And the Adan was there behind him, coarse hands heavy upon his shoulders. He let the Man drag him from the house without protesting. and sat down in the street, picking at his sleeves where they stuck to his wrists.

Idril was of Finwë’s dauntless line and too controlled to show it plain but he had seen the flicker in her eyes as he stepped in too close. She had been frightened.

Good. Let him not be the only one.

***

When fire bloomed in the north and the alarm bells began to sound, it came almost as a relief.


	5. Something wicked this way comes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about this.

Having a physical form was an inconvenience at times - now especially, when every beat of his heart sent pain shuddering through him - but to cast it aside had not been an option. His Master loved his body much too well to have allowed it. 

“Ah, Mairon, my darling. I love it when you bleed for me.”

Mairon loved it too but usually there wasn’t quite so  _ much  _ bleeding. He gurgled through his ruined throat but Melkor, fingers gliding through the slickness upon his chest, paid him no heed. 

“You look beautiful, clad all in red.”

True, he was naked, but that was only because, upon shedding his vampire guise, he had lacked the energy to conjure garments for himself. He sent that thought to his master, along with a desperate but politely worded plea that he send up a slave with bandages and, ideally, a mop. 

As thought Eru were seeking to prove his point for him, he slipped in one of the bloody puddles and his legs gave out, sending him stumbling into Melkor’s embrace. 

“As eager as ever,” purred the Dark Lord of Arda, crushing the Maia to his chest. He swept Mairon from his feet, which was all to the good since he could no longer feel them, and then cast him down onto their bed, which wasn’t because it sent new pain thundering through his torn body. Mairon had spent the flight from Tol-in-Gaurhoth dreaming of soft pillows, gauze and opiates, and one out of three really wasn’t sufficient. 

He sent another desperate thought to his Dark Master, reminding him that, fair and fell as his assumed form was, it was also comparatively fragile and required more gentle handling. 

If Morgoth heard him, it was not enough to distract him from applying blood to a use for which Eru had surely not intended it. 

Mairon gave up and disincorporated, leaving his sticky, cooling corpse behind. 

His Master did not seem to notice. 


	6. Backhand of a god

The journey North was hard, the fortress that greeted them at its end cold and unwelcoming, but Amlach could not find it in himself to regret his choice. He could not have stayed in Estolad, not after what had been done.

At least the cold was an excuse to keep his hood up and his scarf wrapped about his face, one those of his grandfather’s host that had accompanied him were very grateful for. One he was grateful for as well when he saw the first of the Eldar, waiting for him in the fort’s courtyard. 

She was fair by any reckoning but cold as winter, cold as the kiss of a blade. “My Lord bids you welcome,” she said, her voice high and sweet. “Your men may picket their horses there and food will be brought to them. If you would follow me.” It was not a request. Amlach obeyed her without thought and then, realising, hated himself for it. The man he had once been would have been prouder. The man he was now was only relieved when she did not offer to take his cloak and scarf.

The room she lead him to was no great hall for receiving valued guests but small and, judging by the chatter and clatter that was cut off by the closing door, close to the kitchens. “For the heat,” she said. “I hope you do not mind.”

He shook his head and she left him there with his bitterness and fear, and the hunch-shouldered silhouette standing before the fire. 

“They said you were tall,” Amlach blurted in mangled Sindarin - better to butcher their tongue than his own. 

“I have cruel cousins,” said the lord who, for all that he topped Amlach by a head, was shorter than the steward. “I  _ was  _ tall as a boy and my father boasted of it often, but it was I that got the mockery when I never attained the lofty heights he had envisioned for me. Morgoth and his racks did what they could but that was still too little.” He spoke so lightly that, after all those hushed voices and sidelong glances, Amlach could have wept. Perhaps he too would be able to jest so, one day. 

“Why have you come?” the Elf went on. 

“Do you not know?”

“It is said you have a quarrel with the Enemy. There is room in the world, Son of Imlach. You might live out the whole of your life, and your sons and their sons too, without ever crossing paths with Him again.”

Amlach drew back his hood.

The sight of what lay beneath drew none of the pity or revulsion that he had grown to expect. Indeed, the Elf Lord’s expression did not change at all and Amlach knew then that his choice to come here had been the right one.

“I had heard that as well,” the Elf said. “The stories made it a less literal theft but I guessed otherwise.”

“I will father no sons. Not now.” Cailwen had sworn to him she did not care, that she loved him anyway and always would, but he had seen through the mask of her smile to the horror beneath. He would not force a lifetime of that fear upon her. 

The Elf’s eyes were as bright and cold as the Dark Lord’s blades had been when he made the first cut. “I cannot promise you victory,” he said, “Or even vengeance.” 

“I know. I know we cannot win. Still, I will vex Him if I may. I will swear it-”

“No. I will ask no oath of you, but I would be glad of your blade all the same.” The Elf held out his hand. “It is the Mannish custom to spit, yes? But I fear that I would rust. Be welcome in my halls, Amlach, son of Imlach.”

Amlach grinned - he could not help grinning now but this one he meant - and clasped the proffered hand. 


	7. Free choice OR Belladonna Took and the Goblin King

It is the delight of grey-bearded old gaffers and their squabbling grandchildren alike to tell tales beside the fire for who does not love to hear of the notable accomplishments of their ancestors? There is Snowdrop Stumbletoe who grew carrots longer than a hobbit was tall, so large that the vast Stumbletoe family needed to pull up only one to make a hearty supper. There is Balto Tinkettle, a hobbit so foolish he once thought that he had caught the moon in his still and became famous throughout the Shire for his ‘moonshine’ and his thick-headedness. And then there is the tale of Belladonna Took and Golfimbul the Goblin King.

There are, in fact, two tales featuring old Golfimbul, and the first - the story of how Bullroarer Took knocked his ugly head from off his shoulders - is better loved, not least for the delightful game it spawned. His great grand niece’s tale is not quite so glorious but is, perhaps, rather more hobbitish being, at its heart, about quick wits and root vegetables. 

After the Battle of the Green Fields, the rumours spread that the site was haunted. This is the natural order of things and it is rare to find a battlefield that does not have some ghastly story of ghostly soldiers attached to it. This story went that Golfimbul could not move on with his horrible, lumpy head lost down a rabbit hole and so now every night he goes roaring about the field upon his warg trying to find it. Quite why his warg remained, the stories do not say. 

Bella had heard this tale and being, to her parents’ despair, a bold and adventurous young hobbit, resolved to get to the bottom of it. So it was that, after a highly successful late night raid upon Farmer Maggot’s turnip crop, she thought it would be a lark to cut across the old field upon her way home. 

The walk started pleasantly enough; the green turf was soft and springy beneath her feet and the stars shone in the sky, scattered like marbles left by an overeager child called in for dinner. It was late in the year though, and very cold. Bella shivered and walked faster, wishing that she had brought a thicker coat as her mother had suggested. 

She warmed herself with thoughts of the hot bath she would take upon her return and then the supper she would have; beef and ale pie with a golden crust, some of that nice gammon cooked up with sour cherries, the carrots that she’d pilfered roasted with honey, and mashed turnip rich with butter. 

Our heroine was so very distracted with thoughts of the trifle she would have for dessert that she very nearly walked right into the ghosts of Golfimbul and his monstrous steed. 

Ectoplasm dripped from the warg’s great jaws and vanished as it hit the turf, and atop it, Golfimbul cut a terrible figure. Even without his head he was taller than poor Bella, his armour all decorated with skulls and scrap iron, and a vicious hooked blade in his translucent hands. The blade was translucent too, but Bella did not care to try it. 

“G-good evening, sir,” she stammered as politely as she could, and offered her best curtsey. Though Golfimbul was a goblin, and long dead besides, he was still a king and she thought that was the proper etiquette. 

“Where is my head?” said a voice like a cleaver cutting bone. 

“Have you checked the rabbit holes hereabouts?” Bella suggested, in a very small voice.

“Yes,” said the goblin king. “But the little buggers dig more every day and I’m too large to fit down and check. You’ll have to look for me.”

“I would,” said Bella, “only my parents are expecting me home-”

“If you won’t find me back my head then I’ll take yours to replace it,” roared Golfimbul. “You have until daybreak.”

How he could roar without a head, Bella did not ask but, being an enterprising young soul and rather attached to her own head, said, “Worry not, old Goblin.” Her voice only shook a little. “I shall surely find it for you.”

As good as her word, she set off across the field, systematically sticking her head in every last rabbit hole. She found a good many worms and spiders, the bones of a dead bird, and a small, jewelled chalice, but she did not find any goblin skulls. 

Her dress got caught upon brambles and stained by grass, and her hands were scratched and muddy and all chilled through but she had no choice but to keep looking. She could feel the ghost’s gaze upon her back and that made her stumble ever faster through the dark but still her grasping hands found not a thing. 

The night sky began to lighten and her heart fluttered in her chest like a panicked rabbit making her wonder if she would die of fright even without the ghost’s intervention. 

Fortunately, though prone to fancy she was at heart a sensible young hobbit. “If I cannot find his head,” she told herself, “and I don’t care to give him mine, I must still give him something else to satisfy him.” At the word ‘satisfy,’ her thoughts turned once again to the lovely supper she had missed and the lovely legumes that she had stolen and now would not get to eat.

“Ahah!” cried Bella and from her sack of ill-gotten vegetables she drew out a turnip and set to work upon it with her best whittling knife. 

Now Bella was a talented whittler but the field was very dark and her hands were shaking with cold and fear, so the results weren’t her best work. The face that she had carved looked rather wobbly but there was nothing she could do to mend that. Holding her breath she held it out to the goblin king who snatched it from her hands with grubby claws.

“Why,” cried Golfimbul, examining the turnip, “I am even more handsome than I remembered!” And he set the head atop his shoulders and vanished with a howl and a clap of thunder. 

Bella was very much relieved and stumbled home to find her parents near frantic with worry and her delicious pie long since gone cold and soggy. 

I would like to tell you that she learnt her lesson from all this but she most certainly did not. That, however, is a tale for another night. 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on tumblr [here](http://thelioninmybed.tumblr.com), come say hi!


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